If we look at international statistics,about 80% farmers in developing world, including India, have small farm holdings. They are working in the farming field to satisfy world food consumption.
In the next 20 years, as we face serious ecology damage and agricultural collapse, and the decrease of farmer population, some claims that food sovereignty is one of the most pressing issues needs to overcome.
Food security is defined as physical and economic access to food, for all people, at all times, and is always concerned with food availability (Hoskins, 1990)2. Food sovereignty, on the other hand, is not just about access and availability but also rights, authority, political will. development and environment. Thus, discussing Green revolution, is still relevant, not only because it was massive agricultural movements which have changed local agricultural orientation, but also resulted in environmental damage and unbalanced ecology. For years, green revolution methods have been adopted in Indonesia since 1960, Brazil, India, Cambodia, and other Third World countries. The current food system has great effects on the amount of food national production. Definition of Green revolution is Advances in genetics, petrochemicals, and machinery that culminated in a dramatic increase in crop productivity during the third quarter of the 20th century.
Besides, water and land have been highly polluted by chemical supplies such us mechanical fertilizers and pesticides. Unbalanced nature condition effects to the plant activity as it needs time to establish environment conservation These trends are going to continue in the future. Moreover, green revolution has threatened world food security because its method to develop transgenic variety and commercial seed. Farmers have to buy seeds and not produce them by themselves. In fact, farmers lost creativity and local wisdom of seeding and planting.
Their dependency on commercial seeds from agricultural companies is the real menace for the food sovereignty. It will create complicated polemic in the future as food sovereignty is strictly interconnected with international food policy and world organizations involvements like World Trade Organization.
The second reason is that current social movement has created an image that to be a farmer is not a prestigious profession especially for young people. It emerges as farmers always suffer from harvest failure and cannot earn more money than modern jobs. Based on my personal experience in Indonesia, farmers are people with less power to control the agricultural system. This clearly explains the reason of their demonstration to fight for their unfilled rights. On the other side, agriculture policy in Indonesia has not oriented to food sovereignty and farmer rights empowerment.
The policies such as supporting more investment into plantation areas for export commodity (oil palm, cotton, coffee, tea, etc) are a true indication of this trend. Plantation areas are going larger than agriculture areas and farmers not anymore as land owners, but as contract workers and labors.
As consequences, their prosperity rate is low. Additionally, rice importing policy has made farmers down psychologically, they think government does not stand for their aspirations and even repress their rights. Indonesian government shows no support for the development of farmer’s potency. What’s more, the increasing fertilizer price and international organizations demand to cut the farmer subsidy threatens food sovereignty in the future. All of these points are the main reason that only a few young people want to be a farmer.
The question is who will work for empowering food sovereignty in the future if we just have few farmers?
I want to offer some solutions to fix that problem. A tempting question is who will take the responsibility of the food sovereignty? The answer is We, You and I. Then, what is the role we can have to solve this problem? The answer is a lot. As a young people living in agriculture country, I have a strong believe that we need to concern in two points:
1.Raise and build public awareness about food sovereignty issue
This is an important step to build solidarity and network to raise a voice for the food sovereignty to the public. Young people can work with their communities and maintain communication with other peer groups to advocate this issue to become a local or even global awareness. Beside that, by building public awareness, people will concern more to save the environment for their life sustainability. On the other hands, publics can gain more mature understanding on food sovereignty issue and get closer with farmers. Furthermore, massive awareness can support the farmer’s right in the government policy. We can disseminate this issue to our community and then work together to keep the government in track by monitoring agriculture and food policy. It is not just help farmers a lot, but also our lives.
2.facilitate and support the voices of vulnerable communities like farmers to be included in the government and international policy
We need to do this because we have to press local planting system to have government support. It will have a great effect to the food security and food sovereignty. We have to push government to understand that farming is an essential asset for our country. We can do this by pressing the government to stop investment in the plantation areas or joining international organization that has concern on this issue. If we can do it, farmer image as good profession will be restored.
As a final point, holding food power means holding world power It needs our hand and contribution, by our voices and actions. Then we will never hear again the cry of starved people in our lovely world.
Link for Additional source:
a. Sejahtera Petani Sejahtera Indonesia, http://www.tokohindonesia.com/ensiklopedi/s/siswono-yudohusodo/wawancara.shtml
b. km.fao.org/.../PROCEEDINGS_-_The_way_forward_for_small_holder_farmers.doc
c. http://www.everythingbio.com/glos/definition.php?word=Green+revolution
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